Nura ChainTokenized Stocks: 8% of the Market, 93% of the Trading
Published October 4, 2026rwadefiguides
Tokenized stocks are a small part of the tokenized asset market and nearly all of its trading. A Dune report published on 30 September 2026 put them at about 8% of tokenized real-world assets and 93% of the onchain trading in those assets. In early October the market for tokenized stocks and ETFs stood at $3.7 billion, and BNB Chain became the first network to hold more than $1 billion of it.
Key facts
- Market size: $3.7 billion in tokenized stocks and ETFs in early October 2026, up from $719 million in January.
- By chain: BNB Chain $1.1 billion (about 30%), Ethereum $828 million (22%), Solana $738 million (20%).
- Holders: 1.8 million addresses on BNB Chain, 45% of all addresses holding these assets.
- The imbalance: 8% of tokenized assets, 93% of the onchain trading in them, on Dune's data to 31 August 2026.
- August volume: $12.6 billion spot and $72.4 billion in perpetual contracts tied to equities.
What is a tokenized stock?
A token whose price follows a share. What stands behind it varies, and that is the question that matters.
- Backed tokens. An issuer holds the real share with a custodian and issues a token against it, one for one. You hold a claim on the issuer.
- Synthetic exposure. A contract tracks the share's price with no share held anywhere. Perpetual contracts are of this kind.
In neither case are you a shareholder of record. Whether you receive dividends, and whether you could vote, depends on the issuer's terms and not on the token.
Why do they trade so much more than everything else?
Because the rest of the market is built to sit still.
The largest tokenized category is cash equivalents — nearly $18 billion — and, in the report's words, it "barely trades". People hold it for yield. Stocks are held to be traded, and the tokens add things the stock market does not offer: trading at night and at weekends, fractions of a share, access from countries where opening a brokerage account is hard.
The perpetual figure shows where the appetite is. Nearly six times more volume went through derivatives than through spot, and a perpetual is leverage, not ownership.
What happens when the stock market is closed?
The token keeps trading and its anchor does not.
During market hours, firms can buy the share and issue the token or the reverse, which holds the two prices together. On a Saturday there is no share price to anchor to, so the token's price is whatever the people awake are willing to pay. The report's headline finding is exactly that: tokenized markets often diverge from the assets they reference.
That is not a defect to be fixed. It is what a market that never closes looks like when it tracks one that does.
Why BNB Chain?
The data does not say. Low fees and a large retail user base are the usual explanation. The share moved quickly: in January Ethereum held about 48% of this market, Solana 31% and BNB Chain 13%. Nine months later BNB Chain leads. The assets followed the users, which is the usual order — and a reminder of what a new chain cannot copy, the subject of why EVM chains keep multiplying.
What should you check before holding one?
- Who is the issuer, and where is the real share held?
- Can you redeem, or only sell to someone else?
- Are you allowed to hold it? Many are closed to residents of particular countries.
- Which contract is it? A ticker is not an identity; an address is.
The last check is the same on every EVM chain. A token is a contract, and its supply and transfer rules can be read from it — creating an ERC-20 token on Nura Chain explains what those fields mean. Nothing in this article describes an asset on Nura Chain: its bridged BNB and USDT are bridge claims rather than issuer-backed securities. The structure of an issuer-backed token is covered in tokenized treasuries and the RWA numbers.